I heard that items have level requirements which is a big change from the normal way of doing things for Fallout. It used to be that you could explore and collect. Now you explore and find stuff you aren't allow to use. Aside from that I have heard good things.

Cosmetically, it's Fallout 4. Character creation is exactly the same, etc. The SPECIAL and perk system is different and took some getting used to. All your SPECIALs start at 1 and you get 1 point to distribute at each level up. You also get 1 perk "card" each level up and can find others in loot/quest rewards. You can "equip" perk cards sort of like creating a hand of cards in other games. But your SPECIALs determine what perks you can equip. For instance, "Lone Wanderer" (which gives me 10% damage reduction and 10% faster AP regen as long as I am going solo) is a 2-point Charisma card, so I needed a 2 Charisma to equip it. If I take Lone Wanderer again, I can merge it with my existing card to upgrade it, but then it becomes a 3-point Charisma card.

I'm not clear yet if you can equip multiple cards for a perk if you have the stats. For example, not sure if my 2 in Agility will let me equip 2 one-point agility cards or not. Remains to be tested.

The world is more Fallout. But bigger. Sooo much bigger.

Other players are in the world, but so far everyone seems to be content to be off doing their own thing. I heard a few people talking and whatnot, and twice I joined in group "events" that pop up on the map, but for the most part, it still felt like a solo game - all the "stuff" in the world is instanced, too, so you're not fighting over all the spoons and bottles and other THINGS you pick up in every Bethesda game ever. And you will pick up everything in this just like FO4 because the crafting is just like FO4. But better.

I never had anyone attack me or anything like that. People seem pretty chill.

Item level requirements: so far I have not encountered this. I've heard it's there, but at least as far as I got, nothing I found was beyond my ability to use it. Except perk cards.

I guess that depends on what you consider tedious crafting. The crafting is more or less identical to Fallout 4, so if you played that it's more of the same.

If you're comparing it to other survival games or most MMOs, it's much less tedious. You throw all your shit in your storage box. And I mean everything: wrenches, beakers, basketballs, engine parts, tires, whatever the fuck you can pick up. Everything in the world has component parts, and every crafting item or upgrade requires component parts. The game does the matching for you.

For example, let's say you want to upgrade some component on your rifle, and your recipe tells you that you need 4 screws, 2 aluminum, and some adhesive... and in your stash you happen to have a roll of duct tape (2x adhesive), an old microscope (glass, 2x screws), a table lamp (2x screws, steel), and 2 dented cans (aluminum). The game will say "yep, you have what you need" and if you click ok it will break down those items into their components and boom, you've crafted your upgrade. (nb: I made up all those components because I don't remember what has what - I just toss everything in the box and never look at the stuff again)

You never have to pull things back out of your stash unless you want to sell/use it for something. You never have to manually break down anything if you don't want to. You don't even really have to pay attention to what you have unless you are looking for rare components.

I would put it as one of the least tedious crafting systems out there. And I hate crafting.